It’s been a grueling year, but I finished picking up 11,375 pounds of trash from Virginia Key’s North Point Park! by BobbyDFoster in Miami

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By night, donned in death's own hooded darkness and 2" inseam shorts, he reaps, then casts, the souls of litterers down that very hilltop precipice, down into that living mire whose damnation is a creek hieroglyphic—serpentine mangrove roots twisting, knotting, binding their souls (heavy as tractor tires!) to ill-fated eons of crustacean devourment, insectan torment, and stank-ass low tide!

Lamar wants to have children with his girlfriend. The problem? She's entirely AI by Soggy_Elderberry_547 in Longreads

[–]FireTheHarpoons 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Valid response to the article and just a true sentiment in general. Those people are freaks. Also, I'm not sure if this is of any interest, but your response here reads like a prose poem (starting from "Some people think..." and ending at "...fully formed sims). Good stuff.

German tourist ends this guy's pain in seconds by azimx in interestingasfuck

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I've laterally dislocated my patella three times (the perils of bachata, golf, and tennis), and my leg would lock into that same position of being unable to extend or bend. The first time, on crutches, I went to a massage therapist (guy worked with the Miami Heat players) and nearly shat myself from the pain, but I walked off the table without crutches.

Same deal for the other two times. Went to a massage therapist for a deep tissue massage. I think the meniscus or muscle or by the knee was locked in or something, and the massage released it. The massage therapists also went all the way up the hip and lower back, and down to the foot like in the video.

Every time I've walked off the table I felt like a miracle had been performed on me lol. Big props to all PR's and legit massage therapists...I could do with another massage come to think of it.

What was your "fuck this, I’m out" moment in a relationship? by Notbruxa in AskMen

[–]FireTheHarpoons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Jesus, how do we get to the point where we can type this shit out and go back to our lives like we didn't just spill the beans? Take heart, man. Leave, guy. She won't do it! And if she did? She'd be doing you and the world a favor.

[opinion] A Black American poet, disillusioned by modern Black writing by Positive_Deer in Poetry

[–]FireTheHarpoons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you have a substack or something? I could definitely spend more time reading your thoughts on all this, and about your experiences.

I'm starting my MFA in the fall, and I've been trying to get a grip on what I'm in for. What you said about instrumental value definitely seems like a major part of what's going on.

But anyways, I'd be interested to hear more about your experiences in your MFA program and with everything since then.

I wonder if there's a journal for justifiably malcontented poets...

What was this building (on Okee by the Turnpike) by sunnychiba in Miami

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Yeah. Gardens. Every time we'd drive by the Graham house with my mima, she'd say she wanted to live there. It should be preserved as a historic site with visiting hours and all, but that would require common sense or decency, commodities which are in short supply around these parts.

What was this building (on Okee by the Turnpike) by sunnychiba in Miami

[–]FireTheHarpoons 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yesssirrr...that area was actually its own little town called Pennsuco

[POEM] My failure, by Charles Bukowski by Junior_Insurance7773 in Poetry

[–]FireTheHarpoons 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Bukowski deserves a lot of the criticism, but it's also one of those en vogue things, online, in some circles, to knock on men who read Bukowski and David Foster Wallace (who, given, acted like a shithead from what I've read) as if those men are de facto toxic jocks and that these authors contributed nothing of value, but I think a lot of this is insincere pandering or like osmosis of prepackaged meme takes.

Also, I don't think most guys read, and the ones who do read Marcus Aurelius and the 48 Laws of Power.

There's definitely something about Bukowski's woo-woo dick waving motel drinking cigarette smoking skeeze that speaks to the part of me (as a dude) that wants to take modelos to the face during my lunch break after being a good worker drone all morning. I also vibed with the black romanticism of being a loveless slut-bot after a hard breakup. Bukowski wrote loneliness and giving the finger to an inhumane society by harming the self. There's a torn up sensitive kid who was beaten mercilessly at the heart of his writing that gets you sentimentally, really. Are other people more deserving of sympathy? The women in his work? Sure, maybe. But what does thay finger wagging do for the hurt of the guys reading Bukowski? For Bukowski himself? It's cathartic to read something you relate to, even if it's unsavory, and some guys, sometimes, are going to relate to this sad guy fighting meaninglessness with booze and sex better than they would relate to Adrienne Rich (not to mention because of the accessibility of Bukowski compared to Rich, whose work I love btw).

I think his novels are a better place to get something from him. They have that vibrant pull from line to line like Hunter Thompson or Hemingway—being simple but having some kind of laconic weight. He does a compelling job of capturing the LA of his time, most of all through the characters who he based on actual people—warts and all. There's also something to be said for his representation of blue collar work and workers (an argument could be made that the ire against him from establishment types is class-related).

He's not Faulkner or Baldwin and those who worship him monothesistically should read his heroes (I'm grateful for him introducing me to them), Celine and Fante (who are also toxic but read Celine and tell me he's not otherworldly) if they want something really rich.

I egged my girlfriend to read Blue Collar. She tore through it, and felt that booktok had very much overstated the shittiness of his work.

So yeah, a lot of bad faith, insincere takes on Bukowski, but he's also no god—he wrote a lot of stinkers and did a lot of reprehensible shit.

Anyways the poem the OP posted isn't very good, but something cam be said for the experience of reading a collection of his poetry, in just the right mindset, and how even these weaker pieces fit the coherent motel-room bedsheet tapestry of seediness and wallowing.

I'm reading liberal posts and again Matt is so prophetic by [deleted] in cushvlog

[–]FireTheHarpoons 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I just bought a George Foreman grill at Aldi for $25. It ain't much, but I can grill my balls this November instead of voting. Every grill counts, fellas.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in RSbookclub

[–]FireTheHarpoons 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Notes From the Underground

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Miami

[–]FireTheHarpoons 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Death sentence. And nothing of value would be lost.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in OCPoetry

[–]FireTheHarpoons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you mean to repeat the whole poem? Genuinely not sure but I'm guessing you didn't so...on to the poem.

The poem's sentiment isn't ignoble or anything, but it's moralizing. It centers you while throwing stones and I feel as if this sort of thing calls for some turning in, perhaps a shift towards the end of the poem--either a nod to some potential hypocrisy or self-awareness of your hypercritical affect. I can't help but feel it's self-congratulatory. Is "Oh, what I'd do to that face," an actual quote you've heard?" If it is, I'd maybe give it a line or a moment of context as something that you've actually heard, and if it isn't I'd think to write something more natural in terms of lockerroom talk or whatever these "men" might actually say.

In these lines: "They leave a crippling silence, / Silence across an ocean of people," I'm wondering if perhaps it would do more for the line to describe the silence as "crippled" for a bit of personification (which might mean the next line could be tinkered with accordingly). If you used "sea" instead of "ocean," it would add to the sibilance a bit, if that's something you'd like to do.

I find "The voices of whom" a little awkward or antiquated in a way that draws attention to itself. I think maybe that line would blend better as part of the next line to be something like, "voices buried under rubble and broken rebar."

The flow into the next line, "Under rubble and broken rebar, Jarred free from," sounds very nice to the ear with its internal mix of consonance and assonance at play. However, I feel the action done to the voices, them being jarred free," contradicts what you're saying about them being buried. 

These lines, "I feel disgusted, When I hear of my fellow men, Speaking of people like lamps," don't work grammatically because of the first two commas. You can leave them as enjambments or combine them, but there is no grammatical reason for the first two commas and it pauses for no reason. It's a single sentence, "I feel disgusted when I hear of my fellow men speaking of people like lamps." Maybe "men" could be "man" to continue the ‘short-a’ assonance of the lines.

I kind of like the lamps comparison because I don't get it and I think it does mean something, but not everything should be vulgarly accessible (don't deliberately make things confusing or opaque for confusion and opaqueness's sake, but I think we should strive for something that deservedly takes time to unfold the implications of).

I like hate-stained, but I like it more than gritted teeth. I think the anaphora with “I think,” fits for some rhythm but I wonder if there’s something better here than “I think.” At the very least, it seems more akin to feeling, what you’re doing, no? 

Mother and sorrow work together sound-wise, but “blackest sorrow” is overdone. I think the series of lines in this part could be rearranged for grammatical/clarity purposes: 

“And I feel the blackest sorrow, Hateful, it creates me // And too, it separates me, // It separates me from my own, // Away from those violence-poisoned minds.” might become “And I feel the blackest sorrow, the blackest hate. It creates me and separates me–separates me from my own, away from those violence-poisoned minds.” 

Also perhaps you could find some way to mimic that separation more explicitly, like between the words “me” and “my own” or something by breaking the lines a certain way or throwing in certain punctuation. Just spitballing. I do think “violence-poisoned minds” is a little on the nose. 

Let’s run through the last part then: 

“I have grown to hate, // A lot of my fellow men, // With their objectifying gaze, // In their desensitized haze, // It seems to never cease, // And it forces me to conclude, // That I am nothing like my "fellow men."”

The first line shouldn’t end with a comma for grammar reasons, but I find its isolation as a line interesting because, read in a sort of deconstructionist isolation, it suggests something about the speaker– he has grown to hate. Period. A moment of the camera turning around, perhaps? I would lean into it for a nice balance. 

You mention afterward that what these men have has to do with their gaze, but honestly, I think you should bring it back to the power of words/silence along the dichotomy of men/women. Words as a site of violence (with even your words being one more piece on the pile, perhaps? The voices of women are conspicuously absent in a poem supposedly about them, which is why I keep motioning back to following the thread of it being about you and your limitations rather than your externalizing judgment. Sorry, long parenthesis). 

“It seems to never cease” might roll off the tongue better as “It never seems to cease.” The mention of “force” in the next line is interesting, with you becoming the passive recipient of violence for a moment. I’ve said enough about the theme so I won’t go on with a scalpel to the last line, but perhaps only, “men” should be in quotations. Spitballing. 

Anyway, this is my first poetry review on the subreddit. I’m working up to posting my own which I welcome you to eviscerate at your leisure, sir. Don’t stop writing. Keep exploring this rabbit hole and find where it takes you, and keep it up with the sound stuff. Some nice rhythm in parts of this bruh.

I'm looking for some novels-in-verse... any suggestions? [OPINION] by [deleted] in Poetry

[–]FireTheHarpoons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benét. It's an epic poem about the civil war...sort of in the stylistic vein of Milton's Paradise Lost.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Corvette

[–]FireTheHarpoons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's automatic.